By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
THE chairman of Bahamas Resolve, James Smith, said that the government may have to pay interest costs for bad debts at the Bank of The Bahamas.
In 2014, millions of Bank of The Bahamas’ toxic loans were taken off the bank’s balance sheet and transferred to Resolve, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) created to recover the loans.
This was done to allow the Bank of the Bahamas to become compliant with the Central Bank of the Bahamas’ capital and liquidity requirements.
The loan transfer was backed by a promissory note from the government worth $100 million.
The bad debts swapped for government bonds worth $100 million had a book value of $45 million.
Through its own valuation efforts, however, Bahamas Resolve and its manager Deloitte & Touche discovered that the collateral for the loans under its portfolio was actually worth about $22.5 million.
Resolve pays interest rates to BOB from the money it recovers through its loan recovery operations.
But Mr Smith, who resigned as chairman of Resolve on May 11, said the government may have to pay interest rates directly from the treasury in the future.
“In the beginning, we used proceeds of a sale to fund the interest,” Mr Smith said. “But going forward we said to government officials that you’re going to have to make this a line item in the budget.”
“The yearly interest to the bank is about two to three million. At first, proceeds came in from a Paradise Island property we sold; that was enough for a while. We sold a second property and that helped for a while as well. But the treasury may have to kick in afterward.”
He added: “Even if we were to sell every property, it wouldn’t be enough to settle the debt and at some point you have to get money from somewhere to pay it. You might not have to if the bank gets a turnaround and in terms of the timing of this, the bank can always decide to say ‘you don’t have to pay me this year.’ But Resolve wouldn’t know this because it isn’t talking to the bank and is instead just looking at its commitments for this year.”
Efforts to obtain money to fund its operations and pay its expenses, which include fees to its manager and to its law firm Higgs & Johnson, remain underway but Mr Smith could not say if another sale of one of its distressed properties is guaranteed in the near future to help defray its expenses.
“There are different things in the pipeline that might pull through,” he said.
As for his resignation as chairman of Bahamas Resolve, Mr Smith said: “My advisor contract with the Ministry of Finance ended on the 11th (of May). We had completed a report showing properties received, valuations done on them and what was to come.”
In at least two cases, Resolve was unable to conduct valuation on all the properties in its portfolio because of uncooperative debtors.
“We put those to the back of the pile because you don’t want to start off with that kind of confrontation where you get the police force involved. We went for the low hanging fruits instead.”
The low hanging fruits include about three properties, Mr Smith said. They were high-end properties in gated communities or near the sea where debtors had no disputes with BOB.
Comments
proudloudandfnm 7 years, 5 months ago
So Freeport is starving and they have no plans for immediate relief but they can pay BOB interest on bad loans?!?!?
Give that damned money to Freeport so they can survive while you guys piss around with Wynn...
jujutreeclub 7 years, 5 months ago
Let all those PEP,s pay their loans or cease their assets including properties and sell them off. All the small people has to pay their loans so what make these Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) different. We all know whom they are and around here living high off the horse while the small man has to suffer for them.
observer2 7 years, 5 months ago
What about the Long Island airport?
All da money to BEC fraud, BoB loans to politically connected people and Baha Mar China connections.
Where is the FNM strategy to turn all dis around?
John 7 years, 5 months ago
That was a jewel in the Bahamas government's crown empowering Many local Bahamians who held stocks and putting hundreds of thousands by way of dividends in the governments purse annually. And Perry Christie and his no conscience hoggish goons wrecked the bank. What a shame. A national disgrace even. Yet Perry Christie in the media saying 'it ain't as bad as they say it is.' So where is the good you did? Where? And Fwed Mitchell, who claims to allow reality to escape him these days. Shameless idiot claiming that the pm cannot enforce the law against corrupt, spineless dishonest looting PLP politicians who wrecked the Bahamas. May Perry, Fred, Shane Gray Halkitis, Miller Maynard-Gibson and the whole bunch never see public office again. Never, ever!
screwedbahamian 7 years, 5 months ago
In the real Banking world, if a securitized loan goes delinquent, the collateral is repossessed and sold off and the funds applied to the loan balance. if the monies realized from the sale are insufficient to totally liquidate the loan, the individual or individuals who were signatures on the loan are responsible for payment of the deficiency balance. Why are these individuals not taken to court and have them declared insolvent, and liquidate all of their assets to recover the loan in full. why is it that the poor people of the Bahamas now must pay for these financial scumbags to go free as a birdie. Since the Bahamian people have to pay to carry the debt service on these worthless paper loans, every Loan approval has a memo signed of by the loan officer Management and in some cases the board of directors stating the purpose, how it will be paid off and maturity date and referrals and recommendations.These documents should be made public. It appears that the Board of Directors, the management and Loan officers of this bank did the Bahamian people a gross disservice and SHOULD BE BARRED from rendering any kind of service in the Bahamas Financial Industry again.
OldFort2012 7 years, 5 months ago
To answer your question: because the bad loans were made to corporations with limited liability, not individuals. You don't think the PLP cronies who got the loans would be as stupid as to take them under their own names, do you?
alfalfa 7 years, 5 months ago
No Screwed. They should brought before the courts for collusion, receipt of kickbacks, and failure to perform due diligence. They pissed away the shareholders money, and you can rest assured that more than one of them were paid handsomely for these crony loans. Criminal prosecution is what they deserve.
screwedbahamian 7 years, 5 months ago
Alfalfa, Agree but may be toooo much for our new AG.
sheeprunner12 7 years, 5 months ago
Who were those 13 bad loans for again?????? ......... Just recoup their assets to pay off Treasury aka BOB debts ............ Why is this such a difficult action to take by the government?? ........ The PLP are no longer in power, so whoever becomes BOB Chairman/Managing Director must take action ......... Resolve is a shell cover-up farce created by the PLP to take care of their political crony friends who were in debt
alfalfa 7 years, 5 months ago
You may be right on that one, Screwed. So far he seems confused as to what his functions are.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 5 months ago
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Greentea 7 years, 5 months ago
He knows exactly what his responsibilities are. This is is second or third run as AG. But people forget that politics in the Bahamas has created a class of people that believe that the Bahamas is for them and theirs. It is a class for which our current and more recent AGs, all belong. Becoming an elected politician is like becoming a member of the bar, or in this case a lodge. Once you are in, it seems the members are willing to protect the secrets of the society at any cost. Right, wrong, criminality etc be damned! So not one person will be persecuted for this mess. Not one. And if you all holding your breath thinking otherwise- make sure your loved ones put your avatar name in your obituary so I can at least pay my respects at ya funeral.
John 7 years, 5 months ago
And anyone holding loans with RBC or any other bank. Check on your loan regularly. Banks are reluctant to make new loans under the current economic climate. So they are finding every way to milk as much as possible from existing customers and borrowers especially. One bank in particular has increased its loan rates on some loans from 6.5% to 12 %. This is despite having flyers advertising loans at 5.99%. And when you query their actions, they give all kinds of flimsy excuses. Pay the loan off or go to another bank if you have to. Other things banks are doing: Taking up to three days to apply commercial deposits and even some personal deposits to accounts. Imagine a bank holding maybe several million in suspense for several days at a time. Accounts with overdraft balances end up paying interest on money that has already been deposited and sometimes when checks clear they send the account over the limit resulting in additional penalties and bank fees. And the interest rates on credit cards is 18%. When you use a check to pay your credit card, the bank will take 3 days to apply the payment. Not realizing this the card holder gets hit with interest fees every month. And the bank is left smiling.
banker 7 years, 5 months ago
It's time to end the charade and sink BoB to where it belongs.
baldbeardedbahamian 7 years, 5 months ago
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EasternGate 7 years, 5 months ago
Fully agree with all of the above!
rowenabethel 7 years, 5 months ago
To baldbeardedbahamian et al, the transaction to which you refer regarding NIB's acquisition of shares in BOB occurred in JUNE 2013. I joined NIB as Director in JULY 2013. Publicly available records, which are also available on the Internet, bears this out. I trust you have evidence to support your allegations since you will need it. And while we are at it, acquisition of the ambulances by NIB was approved by my predecessor long before I became Director at NIB. Do your research before making nonsensical accusations. Help to give the world a better impression of the intelligence level of persons in this country, which will also help to dispel the third world mentality view held of Bahamians. In the end, lets just stick to discussing issues rather than launching baseless attacks on people. At this particular juncture, the country desperately needs mature analytical reasoning to move it forward. It is understood that you and others have some beef about my appointment as Director of NIB. I would just be careful how you make unsubstantiated accusations to justify your beef since you and others will have to account for the accusations at some point. Again this is a sad reflection on us as a people, and evidence of why we continue to bask in the third world mentality spotlight.
sheeprunner12 7 years, 5 months ago
If it was bad then ........ you should have advised your "good PLP bosses" to rescind these deals ....... but Oh No!!!!, you went right along to collect your 6-figure salary and have Bahamians' pensions jeopardized .......... smdh
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